The old man and the Met

As the scandal over phone-hacking erupts again, there are still more questions than answers

CONSPIRACY theorists like to believe that a secret, sinister cabal governs their country and the world: a network of the powerful that protects and advances its own interests, riding roughshod over the little man and the law. Alas, Britain's phone-hacking scandal—which features a senior prime-ministerial aide, a compromised police service and Rupert Murdoch—suggests that sometimes the conspiracy theorists might just have a point. The imbroglio has forced Andy Coulson, a tabloid newspaper editor turned Downing Street satrap, to quit. This week it sparked a new police investigation. That mustn't be the end of it.

The story burst into the public domain in January 2007, when Clive Goodman, a reporter from the News of the World (owned by News International, Mr Murdoch's British newspaper outfit), and a private investigator were imprisoned for hacking the voicemail messages of members of the royal household; the trial revealed other hacking victims too. Mr Coulson, then the paper's editor, and other executives insisted that no other members of their staff had known about the malpractice. Nevertheless, Mr Coulson resigned—to be reincarnated as Mr Cameron's communications chief six months later, moving to Downing Street after last year's election.

Mr Coulson still protests his innocence. But given this history, Mr Cameron was foolhardy to have taken him to Number 10. Still, Mr Coulson is not the only vulnerable player in this story. The reckoning has only just begun.

Mr Murdoch's newspaper executives have in the past been insouciantly unco-operative with parliamentary probes into this tawdry affair. Their “rogue reporter” defence—always implausible—has now collapsed. The News of the World had already settled with several other well-known hacking targets. Legal suits have multiplied; former reporters have incriminated their bosses. This week, in a partial reversal, the paper fired a senior journalist and pledged to punish anyone implicated in hacking. Good, if true—but much too late.

Meanwhile, News Corporation, Mr Murdoch's parent company, wants to buy the rest of BSkyB, a satellite broadcaster in which it already has a 39% stake. The hacking furore involves alleged crimes; the Sky bid is a competition issue. But they are related because many objections to the takeover cite the influence wielded by Mr Murdoch and his media. He and his executives could help allay concerns about their papers' power by urgently demonstrating that they are accountable.

Watching the police

Although it is reprehensible that the methods of some tabloid journalists shaded into criminality, it is not altogether surprising. The way the Metropolitan Police handled the hacking investigation, on the other hand, has been shocking.

The force stands accused of having neglected its duty: it is variously said to have failed to notify all the likely victims of phone-hacking; to have failed to pursue leads; and to have withheld evidence from prosecutors. The Met itself now faces legal action, intended to make it reveal more of what it knows. The implication is that some officers were loth to make enemies of Mr Murdoch's newspapers, for whatever reason.

This week the Met launched a fresh investigation, following the announcement of a review by the Crown Prosecution Service. If more prosecutions turn out to be warranted, the senior officers who were responsible for the earlier laxity must be brought to book. The Met has transferred responsibility for the investigation to a different unit. Unless it performs more credibly, and in a hurry, another police force should take over.

Some in Britain shrug that this is not, in fact, an example of the powerful doing down the little man. Rather, they say, it is the opposite: a case of celebrities commanding more attention than many victims of more serious, equally uninvestigated crimes (such as much burglary) receive. The Met's defenders say the explanation for its soft-peddling is not conspiracy but capacity: it had better things to do with its time than worry about naughty journalists intercepting tittle-tattle. Those arguments are wrong. The hacking scandal matters because it makes it seem that, in Britain, some people are above the law, and others are content for them to be so. The truth must out.